Etymology

From French natron, from Arabic نَطْرُون ‎(naṭrūn), from Ancient Greek νίτρον ‎(nítron, “nitre”).

Drew Griffith writes that Nitron ultimately derived from the Egyptian term for sodium bicarbonate:

• Egyptian 'ntry'... is... derived from ntr, 'god". The Egyptians called carbonate of soda this as a kenning (the vox propsia being hsmn) because it is divine. Sodium carbonate is divine.... as immortal and immutable - in at least two of its uses : in metalurgy and in embalming. ... This capacity to preserve bodies from decay accounts, according to Plutarch, for the traditional idea that salt is divine... I suggest that the same word [Nitron] had been borrowed much earlier, during the Mycenaen period, when greece was under constant, if distant, Egyptian influence that included the knowledge of mummification-technology. At that time, the word in Egyptian had its old pronunciation. It was borrowed, perhaps through a semitic intermediary, as netkr with the tk representing the single original consonant t just as the kt in daktilos, date represents the single consonant q in the original semitic dql.

He concludes that when the Egyptians later had more contact with the Egyptians, the Egyptian language had developed so that the K was no longer heard and Natron (ntry) came into Greek as Nitron.

References Nektar and Nitron, Griffith, R Drew. Glotta 72.1 (Jan 1, 1994): 20. http://electronicsandbooks.com/eab1/manual/Magazine/G/Glotta%20DE/Glotta,%2072%201-4%20(1994).pdf